Demon on a Distant Shore (9 page)

“I’m sorry,” he said, not looking at all so. “I could not resist. Think of it this way, I am not laughing
at
you, I am laughing
with
you.”

I tried to make my voice dry. “Well ha ha ha.”

I lifted the menu again to hide my smile and grimaced as I pulled it in close again.
Cornish Pasties.
Yeah, I’d heard of those. Potatoes and veggies in pastry, right?

He caught his breath and managed to say, “Would you like me to interpret?”

I ignored him.
Faggots in gravy.
Oh, my goodness.

This was as bad as trying to decipher their speech. None of the entrees had accompanying descriptions, as if diners were supposed to know what they were.

Maybe I’d go with the soup.

Cock-A-Leekie
.
Kidney.
Nope, not the soup.

I hopefully checked the dessert menu on the back page.

Malvern Pudding
,
Steamed Jam Pudding
,
Eve’s Pudding
- Brits like their puddings -
Cheesecake, Trifle, Spotted
. . . . I lifted the menu to eye level, thinking I misread the italicized writing. Nope.
Spotted Dick
.

What the hell?
I peeked at Royal over the top of my menu. He had his head down, but rolled his eyes up to meet mine. They still twinkled, and he still looked smug. Okay.
Not
gonna ask.

“Think you’re funny, don’t you,” I told him.

“You should see your pink cheeks.”

Yeah, the Brits really like their desserts. Maybe I would stick with those. They did have apple pie and whipped cream. I often eat pancakes and syrup for supper, so why not dessert for lunch? At least there should not be animal parts in apple pie.

“So what will it be? The faggots should be good.”

“No, thank you very much,” I said primly from behind the menu. “Think I’ll have the Apple Pie. It
is
just apples, right?”

“You will enjoy it.”

“And stop looking so damn superior.”

My slice of pie was huge, and came with lashings of thick cream. Royal had a Cornish Pasty.

As Royal ate dessert and I sipped coffee, I got that old familiar feeling. I looked up to watch a woman head in our direction on the heels of a waitress. In her late forties, with auburn hair parted on one side and cut just below her ears, she had wide green-gray eyes, a square-jawed face, small straight nose and full, pink-lipped mouth. Her floor-length, plunge-necked burgundy negligee in a satiny material clung skin-tight. Her feet were bare. With a tiny waist, rounded hips and a backside to match, she couldn’t have stood more than five-four, and her generous bosom looked out of proportion. It would probably bounce up and hit her in the chin if she jogged. When I call her negligee skintight, I mean exactly that; two sizes too small, it left nothing to the imagination, outlining parts of her anatomy I would rather not see. Her hair seemed kind of odd, but I couldn’t immediately put my finger on what was wrong.

She sat in the vacant seat beside me.

I leaned away as I slid my eyes at her. She had the worst case of static-afflicted split ends I had ever seen, making a fuzzy brown nimbus over her head. To verify I didn’t make a huge assumption, I edged my hand over and carefully touched her side. And kept touching halfway across the seat.

“And what do you think you’re doing, madam?”

I pulled my hand back.

Hells bells!
Why didn’t I sense her when we arrived at the inn?

She didn’t know I heard her and had already lost interest in me. She leaned on her elbows with chin nested in cupped hands. “Now,” she said, gazing at Royal, “what are you, boyo? Though my memory is not what it once was, I know I’ve never seen anything like you. You, I would remember.”

I leaned back to get a better look at her. Bare feet in water, the slinky negligee clinging to her still-damp body, looking in the mirror as she pulls the towel off her hair. “
Hand me that, love.”
Reaching back, she sees his reflection, a blur in the misted glass as he comes up behind her, and feels warm plastic touch her fingertips. She tries to grasp, but it escapes her hand and drops to smash on the tiled floor.

A shiver breezed over my shoulders. “You were electrocuted?”

Her head whipped in my direction. Her large, permanently flaring eyes focused on my face. “I beg your pardon?”

“Were you electrocuted?”

“You’re talking to me?”
She stared me in the eyes as she repeated the sentence in a lower, gruffer voice: “Are you talking to me?”

Great. Just what I needed: another lousy DeNiro impersonation.
“I am.”

A pause, before she said, “I didn’t believe that could be possible, a living person seeing me, and I expect you think I’m a right idiot - Taxi Driver? - but I didn’t think you could hear me. Well I never. And tell me, there’s a reason you mumble from the corner of your mouth?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “I don’t want anyone to notice.”

“That you’re talking to empty air? Ah, I see how it could be a problem. These fine people will think you’re insane.”

“Tiff?”

Oh dear. Poor Royal, left in the dark again. I gave him a pleasant smile. A normal, pleasant smile like you give your friend and partner in a public place, and kept it on my face as I spoke quietly. “It’s one of them. The departed. She’s in the seat next to me.”

“I guessed.”

He concentrated on the chair. He does it with Jack and Mel all the time, as if he stares hard enough he will be able to see them.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

His forehead pinched in a frown. “Careful.”

“I can’t talk to you here,” I told the woman.

“I understand. We could chat in your room.”

I inwardly groaned. I was doomed. She could move around the inn, and having found someone who could hear her, she would stick with me. “
Not
in our room.”

“The loo, then.”

I grinned at Royal lopsidedly as I stood. “Sorry. I’ll be back in a minute.”

The woman got to her feet. “Come on, this way.” She walked between tables. I followed her out of the door.

I thought she would lead me to the bathrooms near the rear exit, but she went along the passage to the main bar. The bar counter took up half the  length of the west wall, with padded stools in front, and bottles, glasses and dispensers filling the shelves below a huge mirror. As well as the tables down the middle, trestle tables with cushioned bench seats lined the east wall. At the far end, a door gave access to the unoriginally named
Games Room
. Inside, a pool table occupied the center and four ugly electronic arcade games crowded the east wall with doors to
Ladies
and
Gents
on the west.

She went through the wood door of the
Ladies
, her voice trailing behind. “These don’t get much use.”

Seeing a shade walk through a solid object didn’t startle me, Jack and Mel do it all the time. I followed her inside the bathroom.

“Perhaps you are,” she said from where she stood near a floor-to-ceiling wall mirror.

I stopped next the washbasin, mentally preparing myself for an extended session. “Are what?”

“Insane.”

“Because I talk to ghosts?”

“Please! I prefer to think of myself as an incorporeal person. After all, I’m here. I am not a figment of your imagination.”

Her accent resembled some I’d heard in London, but she spoke with clearer articulation. “You’re not from around here.”

“I am now. But I was born and raised in Essex. I spent my entire life there, ended up in Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, until Himself and I had the mother of all spats.”

“Himself?”

“My husband Barry.” She snuffed through her nose. “Ex-husband, I should say.”

“So you were here on vacation? What happened?”

“Vacation? You must mean holiday.” Her head bowed to her clasped hands. “No, not a holiday. I’d had as much as I could take from Barry, so I withdrew my savings and left him.”

She hefted a sigh. “I met a young man.” Another sigh. “I know, pathetic old fool, getting back at Barry by cheating on him. But Alfonso was a lovely lad. Italian. There are Italians in America, aren’t there? But of course there are, all those Mafia types. Didn’t know any myself until I met Alfonso – not that he was Mafia - but I saw those Godfather films. I went to the cinema with my friend Sarah to see the first one. That scene with the horse’s head . . . ooh, gave me the collywobbles.”

“But - ”

“I was almost afraid to watch the sequel. How many did they make, anyway? And then there was that horrible Scarface.
Nothing
entertaining in
that
one if you ask me. And Taxi Driver - ooh er. Gave me nightmares.”

Good grief, the woman had a bad case of motor-mouth. “Can we get back to what happened to you?”

She sniffed loudly. “You were right - 240 volts of electricity. I took a shower and he offered to help dry my hair after. But when he handed me the electric hair dryer, it slipped from his hand, hit the floor and shattered in the puddle of water I stood in. The place smelled like Sunday roast for weeks.”

I gave a moment’s serious thought to that, then said, “I don’t think - ”

“I was
joking
, dear!” She stepped closer. “I
don’t
look
like a burned roast, do I?”

I jogged my head side to side. “Your hair’s a bit frizzy, but the rest of you looks very nice. I should think your heart gave out immediately.”

“I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.” She patted the side of her head. “I spent a fortune taming it when I was alive. Is it still auburn? I don’t expect you understand what it’s like to look in a mirror and not see your reflection. You don’t truly know the importance of a little thing like that until you lose it.”

Well I’ll be. Jack and Mel never mentioned they can’t see their reflections.

“Your hair is very white, isn’t it, but it has a lovely silvery shine. If I could, I think I’d try that shade.” She lifted her hand as if to touch my hair and I reflexively leaned away from her.

She abruptly flapped one hand at me. “Seriously, dearie, I’d look like a tart with hair like yours. It is dyed, isn’t it?”

If I had to keep steering her back on topic, this would take all day. “Forget my hair. This Alfonso murdered you?”

“Goodness no! He wasn’t the brightest bulb but he had a kind heart. I expect the poor lad felt terrible.”

I folded my arms over my chest and leaned back on the wall. “He
accidentally
dropped a faulty appliance in the water you happened to be standing in and it smashed on impact? I doubt there was anything wrong with the dryer before he got his hands on it.”

“What a nasty thing to say! Alfonso and I were very close. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“You knew him for how long?”

She mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“Two weeks!” she repeated irritably.